@article{1479313,
      recid = {1479313},
      author = {Delbourgo, James, },
      title = {A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders : Electricity and  Enlightenment in Early America /},
      pages = {1 online resource (384 p.)},
      abstract = {Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod is the  founding fable of American science, but Franklin was only  one of many early Americans fascinated by electricity. As a  dramatically new physical experience, electricity amazed  those who dared to tame the lightning and set it coursing  through their own bodies. Thanks to its technological and  medical utility, but also its surprising ability to defy  rational experimental mastery, electricity was a powerful  experience of enlightenment, at once social, intellectual,  and spiritual. In this compelling book, James Delbourgo  moves beyond Franklin to trace the path of electricity  through early American culture, exploring how the  relationship between human, natural, and divine powers was  understood in the eighteenth century. By examining the  lives and visions of natural philosophers, spectacular  showmen, religious preachers, and medical therapists, he  shows how electrical experiences of wonder, terror, and awe  were connected to a broad array of cultural concerns that  defined the American Enlightenment. The history of  lightning rods, electrical demonstrations, electric eels,  and medical electricity reveals how early American science,  medicine, and technology were shaped by a culture of  commercial performance, evangelical religion, and  republican politics from mid-century to the early republic.  The first book to situate early American experimental  science in the context of a transatlantic public sphere, A  Most Amazing Scene of Wonders offers a captivating view of  the origins of American science and the cultural meaning of  the American Enlightenment. In a story of shocks and sparks  from New England to the Caribbean, Delbourgo brilliantly  illuminates a revolutionary New World of wonder.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1479313},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674271999},
}